


Same tune, Different 'verse.

by rainer76



Category: Fringe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-07
Updated: 2011-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-21 02:54:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/rainer76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A cold day at the lab, an accidental drugging, and an over vigilant Olivia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Same tune, Different 'verse.

Astrid glances over when Peter enters the lab, three coffees balanced on a tray and a scowl across his face. “I’ve already called Harvard maintenance, the basement’s not big on their list of priorities,” Astrid pre-empts, she’s wearing a knee-length coat, scarf, and crocheted beret, an afghan blanket rests beside her and it’s getting close to ridiculous in here.

“I think it’s warmer outside,” Peter mutters. His breath coalesces as he passes her a cup; Astrid wraps her fingers around it gratefully. “How is she?”

“Asleep.”

“Walter, coffee! Drink it before it freezes.” Peter takes a seat beside her, eyes fixed on Olivia. “She hasn’t woken?”

“Not once,” Astrid hums. Peter’s covered head to toe, the collar of his coat upturned and his gloves on, the beanie’s pulled so low it’s skirting his eyebrows, it’s minus two outside and the heating in the Kresge building went off-line three days ago.

Walter snatches the remaining cup. “Does it have vanilla?”

“Extra squirt.”

“Good, good. Her vitals are fine, I’ll expect she’ll wake up with a headache and a fierce need to pee.”

Things have been weird between Olivia and Walter lately, ever since Jacksonville; Peter’s fairly certain Walter didn’t intend to dose her with a viral of the crazies but he’s not looking forward to the confrontation when Olivia awakens. The tension between them is something Peter hasn’t felt since Nick Lane and the cortexiphan kids came to light. Olivia gets a look once in a while like she’s compiling a list of reasons why she can’t hang Walter for crimes against humanity, or stab him in the eye with a pen. Peter understands, but Walter spent seventeen years in Saint Claire’s, doped to the gills and having pieces of his brain cut out, if that doesn’t qualify as punishment then Peter doesn’t know what does. It’s strange, knowing he’s capable of violence in order to protect Walter, it’s stranger still, knowing if Olivia ever had a go at his father, Peter would be hard-pressed to interfere. Astrid bumps her hip against him. “Admit it, you’re relieved it wasn’t you this time.”

“I learnt my lesson after the ear in the omelet debacle; never steal from Walter’s plate.”

 _“They looked like brownies!” _Astrid reiterates. “And he left them on _my _desk, ergo, she thought it was safe.”____

Walter fixes them both with a withering stare. “For educated people, the three of you are reluctant to ask before taking, is this or is this not a lab?”

“Investigating new strands of psychosis every day.” Peter mutters, he can see the curve of Astrid’s smile, hidden behind her coffee cup; Olivia’s an indistinct bundle, buried under blankets and stretched over one of the beds, restless, Peter continues, “How long is this drug going to be in her system for, Walter?”

“Twenty-four hours, no more.”

“And you called Broyles?”

“Yes,” Astrid answers, “her ID and weapon are stowed away in my draw. We told Broyles we were sedating Olivia until it cleared her system.”

Walter glances over his shoulder, his look knowing. “You seem antsy.”

The last person infected went postal and murdered four civilians before Olivia caught him; Peter doesn’t answer, just sips from his coffee. Eventually Walter returns to Olivia’s bedside, Peter can see the length of her arm poking out of the covers, the pale blue of her office shirt with the sleeves rolled to quarter length; Walter strokes her forearm, the motion parental, tender, and replaces her arm under the blanket.

“Peter,” Astrid says discreetly. “You have the quarterly assessment form to sign, it needs to be returned to St. Claire’s for Dr. Sumner’s review, ASAP.”

Peter’s jaw tightens. “Never liked the bastard.” He bites down on his left glove, strips the leather from his hand and picks up a pen, eyes roving over the mental evaluation, the pen twirling through his fingertips unconsciously, and so it is he never sees exactly what happens but he hears Walter go flying. The scientist lets out a cry, more shock than pain, the blow spinning him in a half circle; it seems to trip him, feet tangled together, horribly off balance, Walter falls like someone in slow motion, but the crack of his skull against the corner of the bench is final, wet. Olivia vaults from the other side of the bed, pupils dilated, a black hole sucking in light, even from this distance.

“Astrid, the door!” He’s expecting Olivia to make a run for it - disorientation, paranoia, increased stimulation to the adrenaline gland - all of her instincts have been pumped for flight. Peter’s trying to circle around to check on Walter when he realizes Olivia’s not in fact running but staring straight at him, or rather, at a point directly above his shoulder. It makes Peter want to check behind. “Astrid,” he says carefully, “you might want to grab some sedatives.” He has both palms face-up, the universal gesture for harmless ol’ me. Behind Olivia, Walter moans, insensate. Before Raylan Percey went postal he wasn’t tracking mentally, Peter’s hoping there’s some recognition left in Olivia, and he needs to check on Walter, _immediately._

Olivia attacks.

“Son of a bitch!” Unlike Olivia, Peter’s not a trained combatant, his martial skills bend toward blunt fists, bull-headedness, he has size, strength, but more importantly Peter knows Olivia spent five years in the military before being poached by the FBI; if you don’t know what to expect she’s lethal. Peter rushes in low, because giving Olivia room to maneuver is a grievous error; ideally he needs to bring her to the ground, turn it into a wrestling match; great in theory and harder in practice. She feints, uses a switch-kick that catches Peter in the left ear. It staggers him, sound reduced to a dull buzz. He barely has time to block her hook with his elbow and misses the knee to his solar plexus completely. Peter doubles over, gasping, and uses the forward momentum to barge into her, tumbling them both to the ground.

Olivia angles the fall, takes the brunt of the impact on the curve of her shoulder and flips them. She scrambles over the top, knee driving toward his groin. Peter slams his legs shut, turns it into a glancing blow and thinks check – balls, eyes, throat – he knows the drill, the next thirty seconds it’s all he can do to keep Olivia from mauling him. She socks him in the jaw, her expression fixed, feral.

Inelegant, Peter slams his forehead against Olivia’s, stuns her long enough to grab her by the wrists and throw her. Olivia hits the concrete beside him and Peter scrambles up, grabbing for a gun, _any _fucking gun. He has Astrid’s draw open and brings the weapon to bear just as she’s gathering to launch. “Stay down!” His balls are aching, stomach lodged somewhere in his throat, and the reason Peter isn’t big on guns is because they’re only designed for one thing, if you pull be prepared to shoot. Olivia’s poised in a crouch, hair framing her face, Peter sees the exact moment when she susses him out. “Olivia, honey, you been to the seminars on workplace bullying?”__

He can see Astrid out of the corner of his eye, needle in hand, and someone needs to give that girl a pay rise asap. Olivia tilts her head, the stare a millimeter off-centre, her muscles tense. She charges like a coiled spring, grace in motion, and Peter’s starting to feel victimized here because, seriously, _what the hell? ___

The impact sprawls him across the desk, claptrap and papers scattering like spilled snow; the automatic skitters across the floor, she’s a heady weight centered between Peter’s legs, groin to groin, chest to chest, Olivia’s clean scent, her warmth, floods over him like a blanket. Peter’s given a lot of thought to this scenario but it doesn’t include an audience of two or attempted throttling for that matter. Olivia uses the webbing between thumb and forefinger to try to asphyxiate him - like a professional - since Peter knows squeezing takes longer. He uses his spare hand to draw Olivia closer, until he feels smothered, his left hand slipping beneath the office shirt, bare fingers skating against slick skin. It worked once before, he thinks, thoughts scattering, using any kind of violence against Olivia Dunham’s never been an option for Peter. It worked once before, he pleads, silently.

He doesn’t touch her often, rarely if at all, Olivia hasn’t given him permission yet and Peter’s become a master of the term ‘sparingly’. It’s almost a game, a touch to her clothed shoulder, arms brushing against one another in the elevator, a tug on her sleeve to get her attention, skin on skin contact’s rare as buried treasure, twice as sought. He thought at Jacksonville...well, it didn’t matter what he thought at Jacksonville because Olivia preferred to be terrified rather than comforted, and the kiss was aborted sans dignity. He breathes, shallowly. Peter can feel her heartbeat jackrabbiting against his own. He flattens his palm, feels the vulnerability of her spinal ladder, Peter draws in another breath, harsh in his windpipe. Olivia eases the pressure against his throat, her body, once rigid seems to relax against him. Peter doesn’t break contact, keeps his fingers square on the small of her back.

Astrid, wide-eyed and armed with a syringe stands in the periphery of his vision, when she raises an eyebrow Peter shakes his head. He can feel the intermitted fluttering against his skin, knows without seeing that Olivia’s eyes are open.

Walter totters into view, one hand pressed to his forehead. He peers at them sprawled across the desk then beams. “Well done, son. I think you calmed her down.” Peter blinks, swallows around the fingers stretched across his throat. Walter’s voice turns vague. “Although it seems she perceived you as a possible threat... More importantly, how’s your reproductive organs?”

“Walter, do you remember that conversation about inappropriate topics?” Peter rasps.

“Which one?”

“My point exactly, and yet, you don’t listen.”

“This is the welfare of my future grandchildren we’re discussing,” Walter says solemnly.

Peter tightens his arm around Olivia, feels the muscles in her back fluctuate, a quick bunch and release, tension so quick it’s invisible to the eye. “Hush,” he murmurs. Olivia’s fingers release, knotting into the collar of his coat, her fist curling loosely. They breathe in tandem.

Astrid, conscious of Olivia’s bare feet, her thin blue office shirt, drapes the afghan over them. “Do you think you can get her to move?”

“Not yet.” Probably, but Peter’s unwilling to make the admission, in the back of his mind is Walter’s observation (perceived as a threat), Peter has the sick feeling he pushed Olivia too quickly in Jacksonville, that he might have damaged something fragile, newly fledged. He’s waited two years, Peter’s willing to bide his time further, afford her an apology if required, try to shrug off the attempted kiss as an aberration.

“Do you think she’ll remember?”

“Mr. Percey didn’t,” Walter muses, his mind ticking over. Olivia attacked Peter, targeted him consistently, and Walter knows Bell and himself used the children to identify objects from the other side. If Olivia’s instincts as a soldier, a defender of her realm, kicked in... “Come along, Axtrix, I think further drugs may be in order.”

 

***  
Olivia awakes with her head thumping in tune with a bass orchestra; she’s warm, limbs languid, loose as if she’s exerted herself, run ten miles in record time. She’s on the diagnostic bed, buried under Peter’s pea-coat, Olivia sits up gingerly, turns her head to examine Astrid. “The brownies were laced.”

“Indeed they were, but Walter says you’ll be fine.” Astrid’s mouth twitches, she stands, hands folded in front of her body. “He found a cure, for yourself and Percey, and in case you were wondering you’re still a little high.”

Olivia breathes out, examining herself internally. “No, I’m not,” she decides, Olivia pulls Peter’s coat on and sets about finding her badge and gun. “What happened to Percey?”

“Broyles has him in custody, there’s talk about laying charges against him but…it wasn’t really his fault.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” Olivia says calmly. “And Peter?”

“Having angry words with maintenance, or possibly charming them, depending.”

“Bribing them, but only if none of the above work,” Peter interjects, walking through the doorway; there’s a scarf looped around his neck in coils, he grins at her happily. “Back on your feet.”

“Yes,” Olivia stands awkwardly, dressed in his coat and aware of it; she knows Peter’s scent, Olivia has perfect recall but she can’t pinpoint the moment when he became something more. John was sharp, overly defined, Peter blurs the edges of everything Olivia knows, she says the words carefully, trying them out. “I think I should get your father a bottle of whiskey, to say thank you.”

"For the dosing?"

"For the cure, at least I didn't hurt anyone."

Peter’s grin widens, strips the room of all remaining shadow. “I’d be careful, Walter’s possessive. If you try to take away something that’s _his, _he’ll pitch a fit like a two year old.”__

“No sharing the alcohol?”

“Well…he likes you.”

There’s a rattle, a shake like dry bones as the heater finally kicks on, warming the laboratory for the first time in three days.


End file.
